We must now talk about the weather
Time was when we thought the weather was something the British talked about. It used to be that we had the dry season and the rainy season and through it all, it was warm. We had a cool period from mid- July, August to September. The weather was not really a topic for conversation, because there were not many surprises.
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I remember when weather forecasting started on Ghana Television, nobody could take it seriously. You could close your eyes and predict whatever the weatherman was going to say: Tomorrow will be bright and sunny; the temperature will be 85 degrees Fahrenheit.
Once in a while, there would be an announcement that a storm was coming from Togo and was expected to hit Accra by 3pm; the problem being that often, by the time you hear this announcement, the storm had already hit Accra and on its way to Takoradi. It was all so boring I don’t think there were many young people who saw predicting the weather as a viable or attractive profession.
Of course, this was all before the advent of entire channels being devoted to the weather. Even when that started, many felt this was not something that had anything to do with our part of the world.
It might well be that because we still think that our weather is predictable and doesn’t change very much, many people in this country don’t pay much attention to the subject of climate change which now dominates much discussion in the world. And yet the changes in our climate and weather are perhaps as dramatic as anywhere else in the world.
The heat
I have been around for a long time and my view is that it is hotter than it ever was and it does not rain as much as it used to in our country. Now it is no longer just my view; it is official and the Meteorological Agency boss has spelt it out as clearly as possible. Of course, this being modern Ghana, everybody on WhatsApp has got a message alerting them to a heatwave covering our country.
Before the message and the appearance of the Meteo boss, we have all been feeling the heat. We sweat more than we used to, the water from the tap is warm and a cold shower does not feel like a cold shower. Indeed, you are likely to spend more time towelling yourself down after a shower than before you get into the shower.
But in our circumstances, what I describe is the height of luxury and refers only to the few who can have a shower, whatever temperature the water is. For many people, simply getting enough water for a bath becomes problematic. The truth is there is not as much water available for use as there used to be.
It is true that the current heatwave is a meteorological phenomenon that can be explained by the sun being directly overhead us in the tropics. But it is time we started talking in our country about the long term causes and consequences of the changing weather and climate.
I notice that when people talk about the heat, they simply move to the availability of power for a fan to work or for those who can afford it, for air conditioners to work.
In my view, we are approaching the problem from the wrong end. Maybe we should start by acknowledging that we have a serious long term problem and we can do something to tackle it.
It was not that long ago the figures quoted with reference to the amount of forest cover we had was more than eight million hectares. Today, the most optimistic figure is just over one million hectares and not much of this would qualify to be described as virgin forest.
There is a lot of talk about the degradation of our water bodies and our forests as a result of the activities of illegal mining, but we seem to lack the willpower and resolve to connect these things to the reality of the change in our environment.
You don’t have to be as old as I am to acknowledge that we don’t have as much rainfall as we used to have. I tell young people about rainfall with hailstones being a regular phenomenon in and around Abutia, my hometown, and I get blank stares.
The plastic menace is a reality that we all acknowledge and we are all repulsed by the images that stare at us after every rainfall and the state of our beaches. We have been told that we should not touch the plastic water bottle and sachet water phenomenon because the industry is one of the few growth areas in the country.
How come other countries on the continent have been able to get a grip on the use of plastic and we can’t? We need jobs for this generation of Ghanaians but we must leave a country for the next generation to inherit.
Population growth
And talking about the next generation, how come that Family Planning has gone off the agenda in all discussions in our country? Our economy is not doing well; but even if it were, we would still be struggling if our population is growing at the current rate.
Why won’t we talk about population growth and why won’t we accept that our population is growing at an unsustainable rate? The pressure on the forests, the water bodies, land use, schools, hospitals all have a direct relationship to the rate of population growth. Why don’t we at least talk about the subject?
If there is a strong argument to support our current population growth rate, why don’t we articulate it and allow those who think differently to also advance their arguments?
We are now talking about the weather because it has become intolerably hot; we have been forced to talk about the subject. Speaking about the weather is no longer something done by strange English people; it is no longer un-Ghanaian. It is our present day reality.
Let us talk about it, let us inform ourselves about the scientific facts that we need to know. And let us not only talk about it, let us do something about the things that aggravate the situation.
We still use language to describe a country that no longer exists: geography lessons and geography books describe a country that no longer exists; we no longer have lush, thick forests.
Let us face the reality of our situation and maybe we can then be persuaded to do something about it. We owe it to the generations yet unborn and the new ones we welcome into being every day.